Header$type=social_icons

SHARE:

Arrests were made after a kidnapping victim had their figure cut off by alleged white supremacist gang members. Men with 'Aryan Brotherhood' on their T-shirts are pictured in Ostritz, Germany on April 20, 2018.Photo: OHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/Getty Images

By Andrew N. White, International Business Times - Business

Fifty-seven alleged white supremacist gang members were charged with running a violent drug trafficking and kidnapping operation in Texas, the Department of Justice announced Monday. Forty-two were arrested last week, nine have been in custody on unrelated charges and six have yet to be arrested, Erin Nealy Cox, U.S Attorney for the Northern District of Texas announced during a news conference.

The defendants had ties to white supremacist groups such, the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Aryan Circle and the Dirty White Boys.

"What all these gangs have in common is that their criminal activity often transcends their ideology, whatever ideology that may be," Cox said. "Their criminal ends overcome their racist views when the need arises."

Federal authorities said they seized more than $376,587 in cash and 31 firearms. The 57 defendants conspired to sell 500 grams or more of meth from October 2015 through April 2018, the indictment alleged.

The drug operation occasionally got violent as four of the suspects kidnapped a man not affiliated with the gang in January because he allegedly owed them $600 in drug debt, the indictment alleged.

They kept the man at a residence in the Dallas suburb of Grand Prairie, torturing and threating to kill him, investigators said. The suspects allegedly struck him in the back of the head with a large wooden object, pointed a gun at him and used a hatchet to cut off a piece of his index finger. However, the man managed to escape the residence.

"It is clear that these hate-fueled gangs will do whatever they must do in order to carry on their drug trafficking business," Cox said. "Firearms, body armor, illegal drugs, drug proceeds and unspeakable physical violence are the tools of their trade."

The federal government believes that the group sold and distributed methamphetamine and heroin by way of drug houses from Fort Worth to Rockwell. Officials said the groups also conspired with Mexican gangs to help sell the narcotics.

"Dallas, like the rest of Texas, is plagued with methamphetamine that originates in Mexico, and comes across the border through the activity of organized criminal gangs," Cox said.

The indictment comes as the federal government looks to eradicate white supremacist gangs trafficking illegal drugs across the nation.

In 2017, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas announced that 89 gang members were sentenced in connection with a year-long drug prosecution case. The defendants received more than 1,070 years in federal prison altogether.